caged royal
by Mogwaiii
Summary: a pair of symbiotes are discovered inside a pair of canopic jars one goauld and tok'ra. Will the tok'ra be able to escape to return to her fellow tok'ra, or will the goauld get to her first?


Andrew jogged his way through the corridors of the museum. He was running late as usual, he just barely managed to slip behind his desk before Professor Garth came through the door behind him. Andrew cringed realizing that the Professor must have seen his running in again.

"Good morning Andrew, well you almost made it in on time today. I think I shall reward you by letting you catalog the next arrivals, think you can handle that?" the Professor said, as usual he was speaking very quickly and not bothering to look up from the file in his hands, Professor Garth rarely hand any time to spare on his interns.

"Of course sir, I can handle that" Andrew replied, the Professor dropped a small folder onto Andrew's desk. He then promptly turned and left, not offering another word to Andrew. Andrew picked up the folder, it was a simple inventory folder. Andrew lanced over to his left, Laura, one of the other intern who worked at the museum was giggling quietly under her breath. Andrew had known Laura long enough to know that she was probably laughing at his expense, and he probably wouldn't find what he had done to make her laugh until much later.

He grabbed the lift key from the front desk. He then headed done to the basement. The lift made a loud clunk as Andrew turned the key to the staff only levels on the lift. There was no one else in the basement which was as Andrew had expected it. However the massive hold underneath the museum was filled with new crates. Andrew sighed as he realized why Laura had been laughing at him. The inventory file clearly stated that Andrew was the only person assigned to catalog the many new arrivals. Apparently Professor Garth had decided to punish Andrew.

Andrew dropped his jacket by the door to the lift. He groaned as he lifted the first heavy crate...

* * *

 **Several hours later...**

Andrew gasped, it had never occurred to him that majoring in Archaeology could possibly lead to this much heavy lifting.

"Shit!" Andrew yelled as one of the crates slipped out of his hands and crashed onto the floor with a massive bang. Andrew immediately began to panic, he scrambled towards the crate, ripping the lid off of it. Upon seeing the pieces of shattered pottery inside Andrew started picturing his future life-long unemployment. "Shit, shit, shit" he muttered to himself. He began quickly pulling out various pieces of broken artifact, hoping that the there was at least something still salvageable in there. He screamed and jumped back as he realized that there was something moving inside the crate.

For a moment instant relief washed over Andrew, if there was something crawling around in there then maybe Andrew could claim the damage wasn't his fault, but then that relief quickly washed away again when he started what was in there. He stepped back from the crate. Looking around the room he found nothing obvious that could help him. He finally decided that the crowbar that he used to open the crates would have to work, it was a shorter crowbar and Andrew was pretty sure that what ever was thrashing around inside the crate would still be far to close to him. He carefully pushed back the packaging, he saw only the tiniest glimpse of a long, scaly grey body before the creature leaped towards him. He tried to screamed but something blocked his mouth, he fell back onto the floor and passed out...

* * *

Ashka jumped to her feet. She looked around at the large store room that she was standing in. She quickly learned from her host's mind that she was standing in a much larger building. She stopped suddenly as her host woke up.

 _Hello_ she said tentatively.

 _God what happened, who's in here?_ his thoughts were screaming at Ashka.

 _Andrew, calm down, I'm not going to hurt you_ Ashka said, she was trying to stay calm but the panic her new host was feeling was starting to overwhelming her.

 _Who are you? where are you?_ She could feel Andrew straining to move his head, and he became even more frightened as he realized that he couldn't

 _Andrew, Andrew I'll let you up, but please you have to calm down. I'm sorry that I pushed myself on you, please understand_

 _but where are you? why can't I move? What have you done to me?_ Andrew said, still desperately trying to regain control over his body.

 _Andrew, I am the creature that you found in the crate, I am a parasite and I am currently inside you_ Ashka stopped for a moment as she could already sense Andrew developing a plan to have her removed. _That is not a good idea Andrew, if you tried to have me removed in that way then it would most likely kill us both._

 _Well I getting you out of me somehow, anyway how do I even know you are what you say you are? how do I know you're not a brain tumor or something?_ Andrew replied.

 _Do brain tumors usually speak? Anyway I promise you I will leave you as soon as I find a willing host._ Ashka said as she walked back to the broken crate. She tried to walk slowly as she could tell Andrew was disturbed by the sensation of someone else moving his body. She began pulling things out of the crate, she quickly found the other stasis pod, she knew enough about the symbiote in side of it to know that she should probably destroy it, but she couldn't bring herself to take another life. She put the pod back in the crate. She took the Kara kesh out from beneath the shards of her own stasis pod and the quickly left. _Don't worry Andrew, I won't be staying long, just give me a few days to find someone who wants to be a host._

 _And what makes you think that anyone would?_ Andrew asked bitterly as Ashka walked them to the lift. Ashka ignored the question as she didn't know the answer, she had never had to find her own host before, and didn't know where to begin. She simply took comfort in knowing from her host's mind that the goauld were long gone, and Ashka would be free to search for her new host in peace.

* * *

 **Later that day..**

Professor Garth stepping into the lift, barely containing his frustration. He had told Andrew to hand in his inventory for the new arrivals hours ago, no inventory form, no response of any kind. Garth had decided that this was it, Andrew had never been a particularly impressive intern and Garth had run out of patience with him. The lift doors opened.

"Andrew! Andrew are you in here?!" Garth yelled, his voice echoing off of the far walls. "Damn were is that boy?" he muttered. Garth searched the basement store room and yet found only the abandoned and incomplete inventory form and one broken crate. Garth uttered a long stream of curse words, vowing to make Andrew suffer for allowing one of the crates to be damaged. The professor looked through the crate, checking the items against the inventory form. He could see that Andrew hadn't gotten as far as this crate before he left which was why Garth was even more annoyed when he discovered that not only were several items damaged but one was also missing. Andrew knew full well that any missing items needed to be reported immediately. Garth pulled the damaged items from the crate, there had been two canopic jars of especially unusual design inside, one of which had now been completely smashed, the other had a large crack running down its length, a sticky clear fluid was oozing out of the crack. Garth began cursing again. He took the jar and ran for the lift. He headed straight for his office. Constantly cursing the fact that the museum had not provided him with better facilities. He began thinking of what was in his office, what could he use to try to preserve the jar.

Garth gently placed the jar on his desk. He began rummaging through his draws. The jar began churning out more and more fluid. "Shit!" Garth yelled he tried to plug the crack in the jar but that only made the crack bigger. Finally the jar separated into two pieces and for a moment Garth was left staring into the bright red eyes of the serpent inside...


End file.
